It should be worth checking out: This 34-year-old spends literally thousands of hours searching for music, from dusty crates at flea markets to moldy bins in the basements of New Jersey collectors. Sometimes, he finds single pieces of vinyl that could pay a month's rent for his apartment in Great Kills, but he rarely re-sells them.

Whether he's on his laptop or searching the field, gathering music is a quest with a mission statement fit for a Buddhist proverb. "Like any other art form, music is an invocation," he says. "Sound is sound. It has no boundary, no one owns it, and there's no reason to limit or categorize -- whether you're a musician making music or a DJ out playing music, it doesn't make any sense. It is made out of necessity. That's what I try to express most with what I play."